Affordable Health Care is a Christian Act

[Wiljo2050]

What proof do you have that nationalizing health care is the best response to the problem? Why is it necessary for the government to cover everyone’s health insurance and not just the needy you have pointed out? A nationalized health care system seems as silly a solution as a national food stamp program where everyone receives food stamps regardless of whether they need them. I’d also add that a nationalized health care system does nobody any good if the country goes bankrupt in its attempt to pay for it.

Could you explain what you find wrong with the Republican plan to form health savings accounts and why you find that to be immoral?

 

[Wiljo2050]

What proof do you have that nationalizing health care is the best response to the problem? Why is it necessary for the government to cover everyone’s health insurance and not just the needy you have pointed out? A nationalized health care system seems as silly a solution as a national food stamp program where everyone receives food stamps regardless of whether they need them. I’d also add that a nationalized health care system does nobody any good if the country goes bankrupt in its attempt to pay for it.

Could you explain what you find wrong with the Republican plan to form health savings accounts and why you find that to be immoral?

 

[mitex]

And while I disagree with pretty much everything you say here everyone should at a minimum recognize that neither your position nor mine is more Christian than the other. What a Christian position requires is that we do what we think is best for all involved and while I may believe your solution would be catastrophic it is not immoral to be wrong. It is reasonable to argue that Obamacare will or won’t work but it is meaningless to argue that supporting or opposing it is either a moral or an immoral act.

Ender

What do you propose? Free markets? Because we’ve had that for two hundred years and health care is broken. 50 million people without care.

Cancer patients dying without treatment. Heart transplant patients dying while awaiting the results of a silly fundraiser to save them.

No Ender the Bishops are clear there needs to be universal access. And not by free markets either.

Free market medicine and healthcare are incompatible with the Christian faith. Jesus didn’t charge for healing and neither should we.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Is that true, or is he just realizing a return on his investment?

No, its absolutely true. Its the whole reason for the Obama mandate and why he wants “everyone” insured-so those who don’t need it(the young and relatively healthy) will have to pay for those who are not. It was one of the big arguments during the Supreme Court hearings forcing people and employers to buy into the government system or pay a penalty. The mandate is the whole vehicle to pay for the bill, without it the bill cannot be funded.

Private insurance works the same way. It goes to the company pot. Your premiums pay not only for your claims but for others as well. Thats why your premiums sometimes may go up on your car insurance even though you’ve never had a accident.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

What do you propose? Free markets? Because we’ve had that for two hundred years and health care is broken. 50 million people without care.

Healthcare is not “broken”. What is “broken” is the lie that people bought into that health insurance is the way to cheap care. What will bring healthcare costs back down will be to remove the government and health insurance companies from the equation. Let doctors, instead of some insurance/government bureaucracy, set prices to cover their extensive red tape. That and do TORT reform and prices will drop.

Cancer patients dying without treatment. Heart transplant patients dying while awaiting the results of a silly fundraiser to save them.

And you think that government will do any better?! You’re merely exchanging one semi-efficient and overly-costly bureaucracy(private health insurance) for another utterly inefficient and overly-costly bureaucracy(government). It will not change anything.

No Ender the Bishops are clear there needs to be universal access. And not by free markets either.

There already IS universal access in this country. It is illegal for a hospital to deny you essential care.

Free market medicine and healthcare are incompatible with the Christian faith. Jesus didn’t charge for healing and neither should we.

Under that logic then you shouldn’t have to pay for food at the store either because according to the Christian faith food is just as necessary as health care. Spare me.

Doctors are people who have worked hard to learn and study and provide a service. They have the right to be paid for that service. You’re essentially advocating theft of services. It’d be no different than if I came over and fixed your air-conditioner and you refused to pay, claiming that you have from Christ the right to temporal happiness through a comfortably air-conditioned house.

The nest thing I would do is rip the part I just installed out of the A/C-and I have every right to.

Jesus’ healings were His way of pointing to Himself and His divinity and mission, not a statement on whether or not you pay for medical care. BTW Scripture also says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” (1 Tim 5:18).

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The principle underlying the concept of insurance is shared risk. The principle underlying Medicare is you pay my expenses today and hope that someone else can pay your expenses in the future. We share nothing at all.

I don’t know. That still sounds like shared risk to me. When I buy car insurance I might have an accident right away before I paid very much in the way of premiums. In that case my benefits would be paid by people who paid their premiums much earlier. On the other hand I might never have an accident in which case my premiums would go to pay for other people’s accidents way in the future. To share risk it is not necessary that those who pay and those who receive be contemporaneous.

Beyond that, all other forms of insurance are purchased at the discretion of the consumer. There is no choice with Medicare: you pay my costs whether you choose to or not. I am a little less inclined to find nothing wrong in forcing person A to pay for benefits enjoyed by person B.

Ender

You pay school taxes whether you have children in school or not. There is no choice with that either. Are you less inclined to find nothing wrong with forcing people to pay school taxes?

 

[Jobu]

Christians have an obligation to protect those who can’t protect themselves. The obligation applies to caring for the sick as it does to defending our homeland. I can’t personally afford a rocket launcher or chemotherapy treatment for my neighbor no matter how poor s/he is or how much I desire to fulfill my Christian duty. I can fulfill my obligation through stewardship by contributing with others to a pool of resources where my contribution combined with others helps my neighbor. Stewardship doesn’t end with my contribution but continues with making sure the resources are collected and spent wisely and fairly.

I think that all or most of us would agree with this very simple tenet because it is just and good in a simple world. It isn’t a simple world however and there is evil that is exercised through malice, greed, and corruption. A natural component of human nature is that none of us wants to be taken for a fool and I’m no exception. I can tell by reading the posts in this forum that none of us do. The tenet I mentioned doesn’t apply to paying for abortion, breast augmentation, or contraception for example. Christian stewardship requires that we make sure that our contributions aren’t wasted or spent frivolously, fraudulently, immorally, and as a detriment to society. Like everything else in life, this paragraph is the crux of the government healthcare debate. Some of us believe that contributing to the government plan fulfills our obligation others believe that this is “fire and forget” stewardship that will bankrupt and corrupt us.

Our Christian stewardship obligates us to stand together and righteously vote against what is morally wrong. I believe that because the evils I mentioned above are certainly part or results of the government healthcare plan, we have no choice but to reject it in good conscience. Our expectations can’t be too high however and we need to control them. Like millions of good people before us our voices or objections may not be strong enough in this world. The confusion that often surrounds evil also clouds the details of this plan (Scalia commented about having to read all 2700 pages of the new law).

Catholics will remember Christ’s answer to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s where taxes are concerned. At the time there were also a great many immoralities financed by the Roman government but Jesus paid his taxes and let the government take care of itself (it eventually collapsed under its own weight). I would be extremely impressed if you could find a single example in all of history where socialism (social justice) didn’t lead to corruption, immorality, and eventual meltdown but be prepared because we may have no choice other than to contribute what is required by our law but give to God what is His in what we can do ourselves.

 

[Ender]

I don’t know. That still sounds like shared risk to me. When I buy car insurance I might have an accident right away before I paid very much in the way of premiums. In that case my benefits would be paid by people who paid their premiums much earlier. On the other hand I might never have an accident in which case my premiums would go to pay for other people’s accidents way in the future. To share risk it is not necessary that those who pay and those who receive be contemporaneous.

If the payer and receiver are not contemporaries then not only do they take different risks but they pay and receive at different rates. No insurance company could sell a plan on such a basis.

You pay school taxes whether you have children in school or not. There is no choice with that either. Are you less inclined to find nothing wrong with forcing people to pay school taxes?

You’ve changed the subject. There is of course nothing wrong with using taxes to fund any number of things that people use in varying degrees, but this is quite different from what is happening with Social Security and Medicare where one group is paying benefits for another group with no reciprocity and no benefit to those footing the bill. A raise in your benefits comes directly out of my pocket and you have no incentive not to make that raise as large as possible.

Ender

 

[BobCatholic]

Is Anarchism something you are fond of?

Actually no. I just want a constitutional government. Something we don’t have. We should tear down the wall of Totalitarianism we currently have in our government, one brick at a time.

I don’t know exactly where we exactly should draw the line but I am sure that if we begun to live in a totalitarian society we have passed it long ago.

I agree, we passed that a long time ago, and it was gradual and sneaky. Many years ago we have all of the entire 1928 platform of the Socialist Party implemented. I wonder what year of the Socialist party platform we are up to now.

For example, one thing that is a hallmark of totalitarian governments is that there are no checks and balances. In 1947, the government created the Administrative Procedure Act. Under this law, an executive branch agency can legislate (create regulations) enforce (executive branch) and judge (administrative hearings) - so much for separation of powers like our constitution says.

When the same entity (like the EPA) can make up the rules, judge them by the rules it made up, and then enforce the judgement as if it were a real court order…that’s another step toward totalitarianism. And state and local governments are doing the same thing.

When someone has been whipped 20 times, are they supposed to remain silent on the 21’st whip? On the 25th whip?

How many more bricks of totalitarianism should we be adding to our government? I say negative 1,000.

 

[BobCatholic]

Anti-draft demonstrators took to the streets demanding an end to an immoral war; but when the draft was eliminated, the anti-war protests evaporated.

Sounds like what happened now.

During Bush’s terms, the anti-war crowd was loud and proud.
During Obama’s term, even though the wars continued, they are silent now.

 

[Ender]

What do you propose?

That’s a good question but not strictly related to the subject, which is whether affordable health care is a Christian act. Let’s first acknowledge that there are any number of possible solutions to the problem of delivering health care and, assuming they are sincerely believed to be workable, are all morally equivalent. It is valid to disagree vehemently about which plans we believe will work but it is senseless to argue about which ones are moral. Morality is not inherent in a plan, it is determined by the intent of the person who supports it.

No Ender the Bishops are clear there needs to be universal access. And not by free markets either.

This is flatly wrong. You cannot seriously believe there is any Church doctrine that specifies how health care is to be delivered. That is an entirely prudential question we are free to decide for ourselves. Nor does the Church even attempt to define what access to health care means. What they are saying is that a moral state has an obligation to do what it can to help the sick … that’s it.

Free market medicine and healthcare are incompatible with the Christian faith. Jesus didn’t charge for healing and neither should we.

The Church makes no such claim. There is nothing in Church doctrine to support this allegation. As for Jesus not charging for healing, neither did he charge the 5,000 he fed with loaves and fishes - should we assume that food is to be free as well?

Ender

 

[Andromedus]

Actually no. I just want a constitutional government. Something we don’t have. We should tear down the wall of Totalitarianism we currently have in our government, one brick at a time.

Okay, do you believe that a ‘‘constitutional government’’ is the ideal form of a government for the whole world? If everyone had a constitution like the American one I mean.

I agree, we passed that a long time ago, and it was gradual and sneaky. Many years ago we have all of the entire 1928 platform of the Socialist Party implemented. I wonder what year of the Socialist party platform we are up to now.

It might have been my fault but I think you misunderstood what I meant. I meant that if we someday in the future will live in a totalitarian society then at that time I will know for sure that we passed the line a long time ago.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

If the payer and receiver are not contemporaries then not only do they take different risks but they pay and receive at different rates.

That does not follow. There are many factors that can influence the fairness of an insurance program, but this is not necessarily one of them. Of course if the difference between when premiums are paid and when benefits are paid is used to hide an underlying long term unsustainablility then that is a problem. But if that is the point you want to make about Medicare (that it is unsustainable) then you should make it explicitly. As I showed with the car insurance example, we already have insurance where payer and beneficiary are not contemporaries. If I have an accident today it is quite possible that my benefits will be paid because of premiums that the insurance comment has held for many years - and which may have been paid by the previous generation even.

You’ve changed the subject. There is of course nothing wrong with using taxes to fund any number of things that people use in varying degrees, but this is quite different from what is happening with Social Security and Medicare where one group is paying benefits for another group with no reciprocity and no benefit to those footing the bill.

I think some people without children but with lots of land subject to property tax may disagree with you there. They may say that they as a group are being forced to pay for benefits of another group (people with kids) that has no reciprocity or benefits to them. I realize that this is a different subject, but I brought it up merely to show that mandated payment that might be viewed as benefiting another group is not always wrong. And that was your point about Medicare - that it mandates participation when one thinks he does not benefit.

A raise in your benefits comes directly out of my pocket and you have no incentive not to make that raise as large as possible.

Ender

which is a good reason not to allow the decision making process to fall exclusively to those who stand to gain.

 

[sedonaman]

…Private insurance works the same way. …

Negatory. With private insurance, benefits are paid according to a contract between you and the insurance company. There is no contract between you and the government. Government can and does give out benefits based on political considerations, and there is no recourse for the poor schmuck. At least if an insurance company denies a benefit, there is the chance you can sue, and people have. You can sue the government only if the government agrees that you can. Once government is in charge of some benefit, it won’t be long before the courts will let everyone on the planet qualify. SSI is a good example. Reporter Jeffery Kay of KCET (PBS of Los Angeles) did a story about SSI and found a married couple who had immigrated from the old Soviet Union where the husband had been a scientist in the Soviet military industrial complex. So, here we have a case where not only were no contributions to American society made, but he actually worked against America (negative contributions if you will).

This is entirely legal because there are only a few requirements to qualify for SSI: over 65, poor (limited assets), and a legal resident. This is why the United States is the desired destination of the world’s elderly; the only thing is they have to be here legally (so far). If this were more widely known by the American people, it would never have passed.

 

[sedonaman]

…Free market medicine and healthcare are incompatible with the Christian faith. Jesus didn’t charge for healing and neither should we.

It didn’t cost Jesus anything to heal the sick. He did it without medical school training, hospitals, high-tech equipment, and expensive drugs. And he did it for another reason than just to heal them. Unfortunately, none of the doctors [at least none I know of] posses the supernatural abilities of Jesus, nor do hospitals, high-tech equipment, or expensive drugs come free. Those in the health care industry work and are entitled to be paid. I vaguely recall a Christian principle of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. You, mitex, don’t work for free, and you shouldn’t expect other to either.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Negatory. With private insurance, benefits are paid according to a contract between you and the insurance company. There is no contract between you and the government. Government can and does give out benefits based on political considerations, and there is no recourse for the poor schmuck. At least if an insurance company denies a benefit, there is the chance you can sue, and people have. You can sue the government only if the government agrees that you can. Once government is in charge of some benefit, it won’t be long before the courts will let everyone on the planet qualify. SSI is a good example. Reporter Jeffery Kay of KCET (PBS of Los Angeles) did a story about SSI and found a married couple who had immigrated from the old Soviet Union where the husband had been a scientist in the Soviet military industrial complex. So, here we have a case where not only were no contributions to American society made, but he actually worked against America (negative contributions if you will).

This is entirely legal because there are only a few requirements to qualify for SSI: over 65, poor (limited assets), and a legal resident. This is why the United States is the desired destination of the world’s elderly; the only thing is they have to be here legally (so far). If this were more widely known by the American people, it would never have passed.

Pardon me, I should have said “similar” in that I was referring to where the money goes when it is obtained, not precisely speaking to how it is obtained.

 

[BobCatholic]

Okay, do you believe that a ‘‘constitutional government’’ is the ideal form of a government for the whole world? If everyone had a constitution like the American one I mean.

I’m not talking about the world. The world has totalitarian governments of various stages. I’m talking about the USA. This is where I live. I don’t want more totalitarianism, I want less.

It might have been my fault but I think you misunderstood what I meant. I meant that if we someday in the future will live in a totalitarian society then at that time I will know for sure that we passed the line a long time ago.

I wonder when (or even if) you think the line was passed?

 

[Andromedus]

I’m not talking about the world. The world has totalitarian governments of various stages. I’m talking about the USA. This is where I live. I don’t want more totalitarianism, I want less.

I was just curious.

I wonder when (or even if) you think the line was passed?

I suppose you meant America, regarding some issues I think you have, regarding some others no, but it is not a totalitarian society because of that. But in the end it doesn’t matter what I think, you are the ones who have to decide what happens with your country.

 

[mitex]

Healthcare is not “broken”. What is “broken” is the lie that people bought into that health insurance is the way to cheap care. What will bring healthcare costs back down will be to remove the government and health insurance companies from the equation. Let doctors, instead of some insurance/government bureaucracy, set prices to cover their extensive red tape. That and do TORT reform and prices will drop.

And you think that government will do any better?! You’re merely exchanging one semi-efficient and overly-costly bureaucracy(private health insurance) for another utterly inefficient and overly-costly bureaucracy(government). It will not change anything.

There already IS universal access in this country. It is illegal for a hospital to deny you essential care.

Under that logic then you shouldn’t have to pay for food at the store either because according to the Christian faith food is just as necessary as health care. Spare me.

Doctors are people who have worked hard to learn and study and provide a service. They have the right to be paid for that service. You’re essentially advocating theft of services. It’d be no different than if I came over and fixed your air-conditioner and you refused to pay, claiming that you have from Christ the right to temporal happiness through a comfortably air-conditioned house.

The nest thing I would do is rip the part I just installed out of the A/C-and I have every right to.

Jesus’ healings were His way of pointing to Himself and His divinity and mission, not a statement on whether or not you pay for medical care. BTW Scripture also says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” (1 Tim 5:18).

Ignored everything I mentioned from USCCB. And some people do go hungry in this country.

Personally I’m starting to wonder if socialism isn’t all that bad. To tell you the truth I’d rather have it over capitalism.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Ignored everything I mentioned from USCCB. And some people do go hungry in this country.

As to your first comment I refer you to here:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9209139&postcount=20
To your second comment: Not because of any lack of Christian action. There is plenty of places people can and do go for food. You can’t help those who are too prideful to ask or seek help.

Personally I’m starting to wonder if socialism isn’t all that bad. To tell you the truth I’d rather have it over capitalism.

Why don’t you ask the Ukranian people just how “good” and “charitable” and Christ-like Socialism was to them.

Ask the people of Greece how socialism is working for them?

The difference between capitalism and socialism is this: capitalism says that everyone has the freedom and opprtunity to succeed if they work hard enough while at the same time accepting that not everyone will want to. Socialism promises that everyone will succeed while in reality only a few bureaucratic elites actually do while the masses are stifled under their yoke.

It amazes me that someone can see the economic news coming out of Europe every day and say that with a straight face.